About Middle School Math

The baseball flew through the air before a pumpkin. Next, a ball of a gazillion rubber bands banged the classroom door. These projectiles were treated as normal by the 23 seventh grade humans stuffed in the room. The noise could have been drowned out by a snowmobile in the hallway, but then just barely. Don’t get the wrong idea. This was not a classroom in disarray. This middle school math class was deeply committed to pumpkin catapult engineering. 

Groups huddled on the floor within radius of glue gun cords or hovered over laptops to consult YouTube engineers’ explanations of catapult mechanics. 90% of the time the tongue depressors, duct tape, scissors, hot glue guns and baseballs were used appropriately—forming trusses, globbing joints, and checking sizes. How did the remaining 10% go? I overheard:

“I got kicked out of my group because I hot glued my fingers together.” (Holds up a crab claw of a glued hand.)

“Look, a floating puppet! How’d I do it?” (Dangles a tongue depressor from an invisible strand of hot glue.)

“Say —inaudible whisper— in Russian. Say it!” (Catches my eye and turns red in embarrassment, a sure mark of mischief afoot.)

“I’m making our catapult pretty. I’m going to color all the hot glue and duct tape.”

The seventh graders never wandered far from their tasks. Baseballs were conscripted back into service as practice projectiles. The least helpful group members (every seventh grade has the kid who puts duct tape over her mouth or holds a hot glue gun to his own throat asking, “Do you dare me? Dare me?”) were corralled before I invaded with my teacherly presence. The odds stacked against these students: it was a Friday afternoon the day of the Homecoming football game and minutes from the start of a pep rally. Yet the seventh graders rallied to their pumpkin chucking math assignment.

The math teacher who assigned this experiment vacated the room to set up the school pep rally, leaving me, her lowly substitute, the simplest instructions: “The kids know what they’re doing.”

Amazingly, the kids did know. Even the kids coloring glue gobs and naming catapults “The Blaster 5,000,” they knew what they were doing.

I’m not saying I was impressed by the seventh graders as engineers. I doubt many catapults stand a chance at hitting the basic requirement of standing. Some structures wobbled on three tongue depressor legs, yet no group member voiced concern. Not for lack of earnest application of hot glue, rubber bands, or duct tape will those catapults be taken to a hallway or a field or wherever middle schoolers these days launch pumpkins for educational purposes. The constructions will be judged on appearance (some groups gaining in “Best Decoration” category points lost when their catapults fail to propel the gourd an inch), loaded with a miniature pumpkin, stretched to rubber-banded limits of possibility, and let fly. Much of the experiment will go as expected, but what I believe after a day of substituting middle school math is a solid bet: Some will amaze.

For most of my substitute day, I covered an eighth grade math class while students took a test. 90% of the time the students were so quiet I could hear finger taps on graphing calculators. But there’s always that 10%, right?

“I stayed up all night waiting for the Taylor Swift album to drop.”

“Can I go ask the science teacher to use her microwave to pop some popcorn?”

“Can I go to my locker to get my homework/headphones/sweatshirt/pencil?”

“I’d rather eat cereal soaked in orange juice than ice cream with barbecue sauce.”

The teacher I subbed for had me distribute mints to each student with the tests. The kids know they can visit the teacher’s desk to pick out a marble to hold as an anxiety soother (“Marbles will be confiscated if used as basketballs” the lesson plan instructed me. “Not a single student dared dribble a marble,” I reported back in my note.) 

After completing this week’s quiz, students placed test corrections they made on last week’s test in a blue plastic basket with a stick-it note and calligraphy that would defeat the best Elementary school poster creator: “Test Corrections Here.”

Maybe 90% of the students missed the significance of that test correction basket. Or maybe 100% of them absorbed the subliminal message: Second chances offered here. Try again—move forward bit by bit. A basket to capture perseverance and progress? It’s the eighth grade equivalent of the seventh graders’ failing fling of a baseball. Go back, squeeze more hot glue, wrap more rubber bands, try again.

I’m just the substitute teacher in the room, so what do I know? My time with these young lives is fleeting. However, substituting keeps school as fresh to me as the first sharpening of a Ticonderoga pencil before it’s worn to a nub and the eraser metal bit clamped off by chewing jaws. At 3 pm, I clocked out of school and walked away from teaching not worn to a nub by the middle schoolers. Against all odds, I felt buoyed by hope.

These young lives look awfully like the hot mess of glue and tape that will be put to the pumpkin challenge. I hope these seventh and eighth grade students will stand the test. The seventh graders will be judged on how far they can launch a pumpkin. The eighth graders must prove they can plot graphs and keep control over a stress marble. The students face other tests: SATs and college GPAs and first jobs and marriages and launching children who will in turn engineer pumpkin catapults. Will these middle school students pass all tests? Will they turn in test corrections, try again? Will they take joy in the simple coloring of a glob of dried glue to beautify the world when and where they can? After what I saw today, I’m willing to bet, some will absolutely amaze.